Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have not changed my mind on this since last year. I still think it is a weakness that our Defence Forces do not have an aircraft available at all times that could get our troops out of Lebanon in a hurry if we had to, carry out a major evacuation of Irish citizens from somewhere in the world if we had to, or to have an aircraft available that could, for example, bring supplies such as personal protective equipment, PPE, into the country at short notice were it needed. We are reliant on commercial operators and other countries to assist us in this regard.

At the time, the Chief of Staff did provide a position paper. That was last year when I was Taoiseach. It was a position paper relating to the acquisition of a strategic airlift aircraft as a concept, but this project was not put forward onto the civil military five-year equipment development plan in the list of identified equipment priorities. I suppose, essentially, there were other priorities that may have had a higher order in the view of the Defence Forces. The publication of that report is a matter for the Minister for Defence. However, as with all capital investment decisions, the requirements of the public spending code and all the various steps required in informing a decision to proceed in a project life cycle would need to be met and set out by the Defence Forces for any such project to proceed to decision-making and public investment in any additional aircraft.

The equipment priorities for the Army, Air Corps and Naval Service are being considered in the context of the lifetime of the White Paper on Defence as part of the capability development and equipment development planning process. The five-year equipment development plan for the continued re-equipment was developed on a civil-military basis and was published in 2020. In this context, the principal aim over the period of the White Paper is to replace and upgrade as required existing capabilities to retain a flexible response for a wide range of operational requirements at home and overseas. Budget 2021 provides a capped allocation of €131 million for investment in defence equipment and barracks and will enable continued investment in major equipment platforms. The increased capital funding for 2021 builds on increased levels of capital expenditure totalling €292 million over the years 2018 to 2020.

With regard to airbase capability, the immediate identified aircraft equipment priorities have been the acquisition of three Pilatus PC-12 aircraft for an intelligence surveillance target acquisition and reconnaissance, ISTAR, role and for two Airbus C295 for maritime patrol replacing the Cessnas. An additional PC-12 was acquired in response to the Covid-19 situation.

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